


What's Gender?

by attic_gremlin



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcohol, Crack, Fluff, Gen, Gender, Happy pride month, Linked Universe, LinkedUniverse, baby's first crack fic, technically it's milk but they get tipsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24585622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attic_gremlin/pseuds/attic_gremlin
Summary: Hyrule's not quite sure what this "gender" thing is; he's pretty sure they didn't have it in the cave where he grew up.The others try their best to explain it to him.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 176





	What's Gender?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the lovely folks on the LU discord.
> 
> Based on Linked Universe by Jojo56830 on tumblr!

Hyrule was often confused by some of the things the others said. Sometimes these things were fairly easy to figure out by context, like when he’d deduced that when they talked about the “Master Sword”, they meant that glowy blue one that Sky sometimes talked to. Other times, he had to outright ask (he’d not soon forget the conversation he’d had with Legend about something called “stranger danger”)

This situation definitely fell into the second category. 

The group was enjoying a moment of respite from travelling at a small but cozy inn. They each nursed a bottle of milk, feeling pleasantly buzzed and giggly, in the parlor of the inn. 

Each hero was lounging differently in their seat. Next to Hyrule on one sofa, Legend was lying sideways, his legs flung carelessly ( _ trustingly _ ) across Hyrule’s lap. Four was sitting between them, perched on the very top of the same sofa’s back; his feet dangled down far enough to occasionally brush against Legend’s stomach. Sky was on the floor, leaning against the other couch, which held Wild and Warriors. Wild was crouching on one end of the sofa, perched on the balls of his feet, while Warriors had his legs criss-crossed at the other end. Wind was lying on the floor next to Sky, but he’d arranged himself so he was sitting upside-down: his back was flush with the floor, but his legs were bent over the front of the sofa so his feet were in the seat. Twilight was sitting in the solitary armchair, one leg thrown over the arm and leaning his back against the other arm. In the corner, Time straddled a wooden dining chair they’d dragged in from the other room, turned backwards so he could rest his arms on the chair’s back.

All of a sudden, the sleepy quiet was broken by tipsy giggles bubbling up out of Legend. The others turned to him and waited for him to share whatever it was that had set him off-- it took a good long moment. Eventually, he calmed himself enough to choke out the reason for his amusement, hiccups interrupting him every few words.

“ _ I just realized- hic- that we’re all too fuckin’ gay to- hic- even sit straight,” _

Silence reigned for a few precious moments before the group burst into raucous laughter: Wild even sprayed milk out of his nose, which sent Warriors into yet another fit of hilarity so intense that he nearly passed out. Even Time actually laughed; not a chuckle or a smirk, but a full-blown  _ laugh! _

  
Once the hilarity had settled down and Warriors could breathe again, Hyrule took the opportunity to lean towards Legend and whisper a question that had occurred to him.

“Hey Legend,” He hissed. “What’s gay?”

Legend immediately started choking on his milk, drawing the attention of everyone else at the table. Four slapped him on the back from his place above them before peering over Legend’s hunched back to address Hyrule. 

“Did you just ask what gay is?” He said (far louder than necessary, Hyrule thought.)

Hyrule’s ears burned and he gave an embarrassed nod. He sensed the stares of eight heroes boring into him and felt his shoulders tense. Sky reached over from his place on the floor to put a comforting hand on Hyrule’s leg.

“It’s okay Hyrule, don’t be embarrassed; we all had to learn this at some point. Being gay is when you have romantic feelings for folks of your same gender. It’s the opposite of being straight, which is when you only have those feelings for the opposite gender. For brevity’s sake, Legend probably used it more as an umbrella term to mean “not straight” rather than the actual definition, because not all of us are gay, but none of us are straight. The joke was funny to us because it’s a play on the word “straight;” we can’t do things “straight” because none of us are.”

At this point, Legend had recovered from his Milk incident. 

“Hyrule, you should know that I only made the joke because I’m gay, too; I was making the joke partially at my own expense. It’s not exactly funny when someone who’s straight makes jokes like that, because they’re making the joke solely at others’ expense. Does that make sense?” 

Hyrule thought about it for a minute.

“Sort of, but one thing still confuses me.” He admitted. “What’s gender?”

An awkward silence fell heavy over the room. The tension was thick, almost tangible, as eight heroes tried to think of a way to explain such a complex topic. 

Warriors was the first to try. “Gender is like how you feel on the inside, and how you want people to see you.” he said. 

Hyrule considered this. “So, like how Wind doesn’t like it when people underestimate him, and he wants people to see him as the hero he is?” he asked. Wind blushed, but shook his head. 

“Not quite, but close.” Twilight chimed, sitting up straighter. “Gender doesn’t have anything to do with age, but it’s a little like what you said. Sometimes certain people are expected to be a certain way, based on physical traits that really have nothing to do with what kind of person they are inside.”

Hyrule really thought he had it this time. “Oh! So like when people think Time is aggressive and scary because of his scar?”

Four hummed thoughtfully. “I think you’re still close, but not quite. I think Gender is more like when people think you should act a certain way because of things about you that you can’t change. And sometimes people don’t like it when you act differently than they think you should.” 

“So… like how people don’t think you’re as strong as you are at first glance, just because you’re short?” Hyrule tried, his confidence wavering. 

“Not quite, but you’re still really close.” Four replied.

Time spoke up from his corner. “Maybe it would help to think of it like the various races of Hyrule. Certain kinds of people belong to a certain race, like the Zora or the Gorons, just like people belong to a certain gender. It’s a bit of a categorization system.”   
  


Hyrule had never met a Goron before, but he’d had less than pleasant experiences with the fire-breathing Zora. His nose scrunched up without his consent, betraying his confusion. 

Sky jumped in to try to clarify things. “I think gender is a little bit more like the differences  _ within  _ various species. Birds, for example,--” Several Links groaned-- “all share certain traits, but they have differences, too. So all birds have wings, and beaks, and feathers, but a woodpecker’s long beak and camouflage feather pattern will be different from a duck’s wide bill and waterproof coating. But, there are certain birds that have traits of others’, like the swan, which has both a long beak like the woodpecker and waterproof feathers like a duck.”

Hyrule almost felt dizzy after such a roundabout metaphor. He wasn’t sure he’d ever even seen a swan. Wild grimaced at his open-mouthed gape and swooped in, not unlike Sky’s metaphorical birds. 

“I think this is getting a little lost in the metaphor,” he said. “Hyrule, I think Time was onto something when he mentioned categorization. Gender is basically a way to sort people. It’s a series of traits that people use to sort people into one group or another-- kinda like a venn diagram! One of the regions represents male, the other female, and the overlap would be people who feel some combination of the two. Male and female have certain traits associated with them, but they aren’t inherently required-- like I said, it’s just a way to categorize people. But the thing that makes the categorization thing dumb is that people can seem to be one gender at first, but really they feel like another, or they could fall outside the venn diagram entirely! It’s really personal, and depends on the individual.”

Before Hyrule could even think to ask what a Venn diagram was, a young voice cut in.

“Tetra once explained it to me like this--” Wind said confidently from his place upside-down on the floor. “And you can trust her because I’ve been listening to her gender rants for two years now and she seems to know what she’s talking about: Gender is a little bit like the ocean. Everybody experiences it, but nobody ever experiences it quite the same way as anybody else. It’s almost incomprehensibly big, and sometimes it ebbs and flows like the tides-- and sometimes it can sweep you up like a riptide. Some folks are content to just see it from the beach and take it as it is, but others are drawn deeper, to explore uncharted waters--”

Wind’s speech was cut off by a huff from across the room. 

“You guys are just confusing him!” Legend cried. “Listen, Hyrule, gender can be big and complicated and hard to understand.  _ But that doesn’t really matter! _

“Gender is only as complicated as you make it, and if you want to keep it simple, it doesn’t have to be anything more than what pronouns you want to be called by: the big ones are ‘he’ ‘she’ and ‘they.’ If the rest doesn’t matter to you, then that’s fine; we can leave gender theory to the experts.”

Hyrule considered this for a few long moments. 

“I think I understand,” He said finally. And he really did. 


End file.
